Fuel cut, panic in cockpit, mayday: new details of deadly Air India crash

Fuel control switches for the engines of the Air India flight that crashed last month were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel, a preliminary investigation report said on Saturday.

The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff.

The Air India flight - a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner - crashed on June 12 in Ahmedabad, killing at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground.

Only one passenger survived the crash, which is one of India’s worst aviation disasters.

According to the report, the flight lasted around 30 seconds between takeoff and crash.

It said that once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, “the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another" within a second.

The report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight.

The movement of the fuel control switches allow and cut fuel flow to the plane’s engines.

The switches were flipped back into the run position, the report said, but the plane could not gain power quickly enough to stop its descent after the aircraft had begun to lose altitude.

“One of the pilots transmitted “‘MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY’,” the report said.

It also indicated confusion in the cockpit moments before the crash.

In the flight’s final moment, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.

The preliminary report did not recommend any actions to the Boeing.

Air India in a statement said it is fully cooperating with authorities investigating the crash.

The plane’s black boxes - combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders - were recovered in the days following the crash and later downloaded in India.

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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by HOOK Desk and is published from a syndicated feed AP.)